# 1885
As the second hardest hit country by the avian flu virus, it is understandable that Vietnam would want to develop and produce their own vaccine. The H5N1 virus has infected at least 106 people, and killed 52 in that nation.
Vietnam is one of six countries that received grants from the UN last year to help bolster their vaccine production capability. The grant money was provided jointly by the United States and Japan. The other five recipients of these grants were India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Thailand.
Vietnam starts human trials for bird flu vaccine
Grant McCool, Reuters
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has started clinical trials for developing a human vaccine for the H5N1 virus, researchers said on Thursday in the Southeast Asian country that has recorded 52 deaths from bird flu.
Eleven volunteers, all researchers, received their second dosage of the trial vaccine on Thursday inside spotlessly-clean medical rooms of a company run by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi.
Dr Nguyen Tuyet Nga, the epidemiologist and virologist heading the clinical trial, said researchers were using the highly-pathogenic strain of H5N1 taken from humans in 2004 in Vietnam and known as VN1194.
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She said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency, had helped with project development, but there was no foreign pharmaceutical partner.
The dosages for the clinical trial range from 3.75 micrograms to 45 micrograms per dose and two doses 28 days apart, Nga said. She said there were no boosters planned for the trial.
